What motivated you to go into neuroscience broadly?

I was really unsure of what I wanted to study or do after high school, other than learn. I went to McGill University in Montreal for undergrad and ended up living down the street from the Montreal Neurological Institute. The Montreal Neurological Institute is just so rich in history. It's hard not to love the brain and get into neuroscience being so close to it. It's where Dr. Wilder Penfield, the founder of the Montreal Neurological Institute, did his seminal work mapping the motor and sensory homunculus. Dr. Brenda Milner was (and still is!) part of the faculty there. I think everyone has some fascination with the brain, but then just being immersed in this environment among these super prolific neuroscientists, and being among people approaching  different questions from different perspectives definitely contributed to why I chose to study neuroscience.

What motivated you to go into your particular area of research?

I've always been very interested in mental health research and, particularly, in understanding mental health onset in adolescence. I feel like I always gravitate towards trying to solve very complex problems. And I don't think there's anything really more complicated than the intersection of development, social and environmental exposures, and all of the dynamic change that comes along with adolescence. And then on top of it, you’re working with a time period that is vulnerable to serious mental health conditions that can persist into adulthood. Because mental health in adolescence is so complex, we can't just look at it from some self report data or from one vantage point. We need clinician-based interviews, but we also need to understand biological mechanisms that can be drawn from multiple scales of neuroscience. During my graduate training, I started out doing clinical brain imaging in patients with psychosis in Montreal, and then I did a three-month internship at the University of California San Diego in the middle of my PhD. Montreal was truly a hub for neuroscience, but I quickly learned that San Diego also was. Additionally, San Diego is home to many pioneers in genetic research. My 3 months in San Diego taught me that if I wanted to understand what's shaping the brain, then I would  have to go down even deeper into molecular mechanisms, for instance through genetics. One way of thinking about it is that genes are shaping your brain, which are then shaping your behavior and factors relevant to studying mental health (this could be reversed too if you’re thinking of epigenetics). 

What general challenges do you see for science in the upcoming years, and what approaches would you say are most important in this regard?

I'm very grateful to be in the academic position I’m in, but I do feel like academia has largely operated within the same framework for years. There's often a lack of transparency between our science and what is being translated to the public. Many of my own publications that I've written are behind a paywall–even I have trouble accessing them! I think there's also a lack of consistent training and prioritization around science communication. It's often just thought of as an afterthought. If we are going to solve these complex problems in neuroscience, we need to engage the broader community. I would love to see science communicated to broader audiences and have it be part of our grants alongside proper training, to (re)build trust in science among the communities we are trying to impact with our research.

How would you describe your research to a nonscientist?

I study the biological factors that contribute to mental health concerns in teens. This includes what is in our DNA, how that shapes our brain structure and function, and in turn, how this shapes our personality and our way of thinking, and then asking whether all of those ingredients might put us at greater risk for mental health concerns in adolescence. Right now, I am primarily focused on mapping these risk factors in adolescent eating disorders.

And what have been some of the highlights of your career? What is your most proud scientific accomplishment?

Honestly, probably this recognition from Flux! One thing that has also been a highlight has been my recent shift to working in eating disorders. I worked for many years in psychosis research, then shifted over to ‘big data’, incorporating genomics and neuroimaging, when I moved to UCSD. I am excited to bring some of the techniques I’ve learned in clinical imaging, big data analytics and ‘omics’ to the eating disorders world. I'm just very enthusiastic to be in a space where I feel there's a lot of room for innovation. I also really love working with students. I had this fear when I started my faculty position in February of “I don't know what my next grant will focus on” and my mentees have been helping me answer that question with their amazing ideas, bridging out into ways that I couldn't imagine even a few months ago. 

What do you think are the most pressing issues in the developmental cognitive neuroscience field of your research area and for the field in general?

Our methods are becoming much more advanced. We're able to carry out complex modeling of thousands of participants across many time points across multiple brain regions. There's so much opportunity, but I also think as a field it can be easy to get caught up in the methodological details and lose sight of the big picture. So if you're working on a methods paper, still bring it back to a clinician, pediatrician, or teacher to ask how this method might help them. I think Flux does an amazing job of this with its interdisciplinary community. We’ve also been seeing this boom of large datasets for a while now. But I don't want us to forget about the value of small datasets. 

Do you have any advice you'd like to share with trainees in our community and who are interested in pursuing developmental cognitive neuroscience research? 

My very simple motto is ‘do what you love’. At the end of the day, you are the person that wakes up in the morning and knows what sparks joy and sparks your interest, and you also know which things you're dragging your feet on. As researchers, we take on a lot of different tasks, and there are some things that are harder to delegate. I would recommend making a list of the things that you like and that you don't like in your day-to-day. Make sure that you're doing a little bit more of what you do like. And then for the things that you don't like as much, team up with peers that have strengths in that area and make it a more enjoyable learning experience. 

Do you have any advice or key takeaway from your research that you'd like to share with the broader community?

Bringing it back to the big picture, regardless of the science you do, it’s so important to integrate the people who you actually want to be impacting. For me right now, that has been patients with eating disorders. We have a very cool setup here at UCSD’s Eating Disorders clinic where neurobiological research is very much supported. Weekly, we teach patients about the research evidence behind the treatments that they're engaging in. We talk about the brain and the genetics of eating disorders,and how that information makes them feel. It's so important to incorporate lived experience and engage in a dialogue of these things. So it's not just me spewing facts about research, but I'm also asking patients: how would you change that study? How would you make that more ecologically relevant? 

What do you do for fun outside of the lab and just work in general?

I'm a long distance runner and I’m just so grateful to be able to soak in the gorgeous San Diego coastline year round. I love forms of movement where I can be in nature and can give myself time to process random thoughts. I also love dancing and the creative aspect of it. If I’m not moving, I also love reading fiction and exploring new coffee shops - excited to discover some in Dublin!